100 Best Albums Of All Time

01 (Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell Below, We’re All Going to Go

02 The Other Side of Town

03 The Makings of You

04 We the People Who Are Darker Than Blue

05 Move On Up

06 Miss Black America

07 Wild and Free

08 Give It Up

By the time Curtis Mayfield left the Impressions to go solo in 1970 he was a legend. He started with the Impressions at the age of 14 and had his first #1 hit in 1961 when he was 19. In 1965 he penned the unofficial civil rights anthem, ‘People Get Ready’, about which he said: ‘The nice, spiritual gospel feel dictated the words, which came from the inspiration of the church and different sermons. It just all came together properly.’ Mayfield’s talent was to combine political and progressive songwriting with warm, soulful funk.

‘It was always my way,’ he said in 1985. ‘I always believed that whatever I should speak or sing about should have some value. I’m not totally about being just an entertainer, making people grin. It means a little bit more to me than that.’

Mayfield grew up in Chicago in the 1940s and 1950s in the wake of the ‘Chicago Renaissance’, which saw a cultural revolution in black communities across all the arts. Chicago also had a thriving jazz scene, while Muddy Waters presided over a thriving blues scene on the South Side. And then later, of course, there was Sam Cooke. Mayfield absorbed all these influences, added a strong Latin flavour and created his own distinctive sound. His distinctive guitar playing significantly influenced rock players – especially Jimi Hendrix and Robbie Robertson. Mayfield in turn absorbed some of the directness of rock music, most evidently on this, his debut solo album.

Mayfield was one of the first R&B writers to address ghettos issues, and by 1970 James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Sly Stone and Motown’s Norman Whitfield were all talking about a revolution. Mayfield is a little more subtle and more seductive than his contemporaries. His gift for visual imagery and his dramatic use of horns and strings makes Curtis a totally cinematic experience. The six-minute epic ‘We the People Who Are Darker Than Blue’ moves through a palette of jazz to funk and soul but is somewhat more than any of them. It’s message couldn’t be clearer.

‘(Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell Below, We’re All Going to Go’ begins with a fuzz bass and a woman citing the Book of Revelations, exhorting the listener to take note of the good book. Then the voice comes in with Mayfield shouting, ‘Sisters! Niggers! Whities! Jews! Crackers!/Don’t worry, If there’s a Hell below, we’re all gonna go!’, and the song explodes in a fury of chopping wah wah guitar and soaring horns and strings. The danceability of this music belies the steely despair in the lyrics and this was a style that Mayfield would refine on ‘Pusherman’ on the Superfly soundtrack the following year. This is an unromantic view of ghetto life, both literate and heartfelt, and one of the milestones on the road to a new black consciousness.

The other key track, ‘Move On Up’, could well be the sequel to ‘People Get Ready’ with its strong gospel melody, its positive message and its firm political line. Mayfield takes a political slogan but delivers it like a spiritual message. One of the most covered soul songs of the period, ‘Move On Up’ continues to be influential when most ’70s soul is now nostalgia.

‘It’s now time to carry the message in a more personalised vein,’ Mayfield said in 1972. His records were clearly political but never polemic. ‘That way people relate easier. General statements are all very well but fit the statement into a personal context, which the listener can place himself into, and you then have something with much more impact.’